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ABC News
3 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
Growing up queer in a Hasidic Jewish community, Sara Glass shares her journey of survival
As 19-year-old Sara Glass sat across from a stranger in a hotel lobby in downtown Manhattan, she knew the rest of her life would be decided for her. Both raised in the Orthodox Gur sect of Hasidic Judaism, the pair had been set up by a matchmaker, who assessed their piety, financial assets and family standing. The meeting was almost entirely scripted and Glass, who was called Malka then, had no say in the matter. "We were sitting at this little bench — he in a black fur hat and black suit, me in a long dress, very little makeup, low heels — across from each other," she recalls. "I was taught by my teachers to order Diet Sprite because then if you spill it, it won't stain. He was taught to tip the valet. We had these rules about how to behave. "If you looked around the hotel lobby, there were 10 other couples that looked just as awkward and stilted as we did, ordering the same drinks." Glass' prospective husband, Yossi, was 26 and considered an ageing bachelor. Their courtship comprised six awkward dates in that same lobby. "We had never touched. We had never lived together. We didn't really even know that much about each other," Glass says. "But he proposed and I said yes." Glass knew that marriage meant she would be expected to play the part of the obedient wife, bearing children and honouring God as per her orthodox teachings. She also knew it meant burying the part of herself she feared most: her attraction to women. Glass — who has just published a memoir called Kissing Girls on Shabbat — describes her upbringing in her Hasidic community in Brooklyn in the 90s as like "a black and white film from the early 1900s". "Everything in the world was banned … We couldn't watch TV or movies, we didn't have any screens in our home, we couldn't listen to pop music, anything that would involve engaging with the secular world." As a teenager, Glass would rebel in small ways, like painting her toenails or wearing thigh-high socks instead of full-length stockings. But at 15, she fell in love with a girl and knew it was an unforgivable transgression. "I realised that that would be a battle I would have to fight really, really hard in order to overcome," she says. "And I thought I would be able to, that it was a test from God and I could control the desire." But though she "prayed, repented, fasted", she fell in love with another girl at 19. "She would sneak into my bedroom at night, and we had a six-month relationship. But we knew that as soon as one of us was matched with an appropriate young man, it would be over," she says. Then came the blind date with Yossi in the lobby. After agreeing to marry Yossi, Glass began bridal classes, which taught her about her marital duties. She learned how to purify herself in a ritual bath after she menstruated and how to count the days after her period. She was not allowed birth control. "There's a very detailed set of rules about what a woman is supposed to do with her body and how to be intimate, and those are secrets [withheld] until you're engaged," she says. "I never had sex ed; I didn't know what it meant to have sex. I had never seen a naked boy or man. But after I got engaged, I started to learn what would be required of me. "I kind of knew man parts were different, but I actually could not visualise male anatomy, couldn't draw it, had no idea what it looked like. And I didn't, for some reason, realise that I would have to have a male body interact physically with my body and penetrate my body. "I found that out 72 hours before my wedding." Glass dreaded intimacy with her new husband but believed it was too late to back out. "I had already committed. We had a wedding hall, we had guests flying in from all over the world," she says. Her wedding was traditional, carried out in an Orthodox synagogue that divided men and women. She wore a white, modest dress and was surrounded by her female friends and family members, who danced around her in a circle. She realised then that "whatever happened from there on out would be completely up to God and my husband". "Pregnancies, intimacy — nothing would be mine." It didn't take long for Glass to learn exactly who she had married. Yossi's commitment to orthodoxy came above all else — even his wife's health. Soon after their wedding, Glass fell pregnant and miscarried, but her husband refused to call for medical help when she was bleeding because it was Shabbat. In 2005, Glass gave birth to a son, named Avigdor. She was only permitted by their rabbi to use contraception for a few months after he was born and fell pregnant again quickly, this time with a daughter, Shira. "I had two young kids and I was trying to live in the community, married to my husband, being pious and devout," she says. Yossi had initially agreed that Glass could pursue further education when they were married, but he reneged on his promise and permitted her only to study skills she could bring back to the community. Glass began a Master's in social work at Rutgers University, though Yossi instructed her to read Jewish theology texts every day to ensure her secular education did not "contaminate" their home. Through her study, Glass began to learn about the outside world from which she had been so sheltered. "I started to get exposed to the world and to realise that some people actually enjoyed having sex and that it should be consensual … that some people value joy and free will," she says. At 24, she decided to leave her husband, but it wasn't an easy process. In Orthodox Judaism, only a man can choose to divorce his wife. She appealed to rabbis, friends and family members for help. All of them advised her to stay in the marriage. Finally, through negotiating with her in-laws, she convinced Yossi to grant her a divorce. But to procure the divorce document, known as a "gett", she had to agree to raise her children within the Orthodox community. And if she was deemed not pious enough, she would lose custody. "I was really afraid … I didn't know a lot about myself, but I knew that I was not going to lose my children," Glass says. "I barely even knew what it meant to love someone, but I loved those kids more than anything." Suddenly alone and without experience in managing money or a home, Glass struggled financially. She had some support from her father and was working as a social worker, but she knew she needed more to provide for her family. She began using every spare moment to research PhD programs. In 2010, she was introduced to another Orthodox Jewish man, Eli. He was caring, empathetic and enthusiastic about her pursuit of a PhD. They dated for 18 months before he proposed. "I said yes, because I loved him, and yes, because I was drowning, and he was my raft," Glass writes in her memoir. Eli supported Glass while she completed her PhD and helped her set up a private practice as a clinical psychologist. But their marriage was marred by depression and grief, especially after Glass's sister, Shani, died by suicide in 2013. Glass told her second husband about her attraction to women but promised him it was just a phase. As the years wore on, however, her sexuality became increasingly hard to repress and she knew her second marriage had to end. At 32, after a romantic encounter with a woman, Glass finally found herself able to admit that she was a lesbian. "I was gay. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs," she writes. "The knowledge had been inside me all along. I just wished I had been allowed to look for it." Thirteen years after the birth of her son, Glass was finally able to appeal the conditions of her first divorce contract and extricate herself from the Hasidic community. For the first time, she began to live as her authentic self. She had relationships with women and even had another child, a son born via IVF. It took years, however, to come to terms with her religion outside of Hasidism. At first, she wanted "nothing to do with it". "But now … I do feel connected to certain parts of Judaism, particularly to the values around being a good human being," she says. "I learned to consider the needs of others and to fight for their rights." Today, Glass is a psychotherapist specialising in treating complex trauma. She also dedicates time, both personally and professionally, to mentoring and supporting queer youth. "I just feel like this is what I'm meant to do. I'm meant to never stop speaking about what queer people go through," she says. "That's how people find hope. They look at my story and they say, 'Oh, I can envision a different future'."
New York Times
03-03-2025
- General
- New York Times
A Chabad House for a Growing Family
In 2019, Rabbi Yanky Bell was on one of his annual pilgrimages to the Ohel, the resting place of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson in Queens, New York, when he realized it was going to take him a while to write his petition. Usually, Rabbi Bell's formal requests include blessings, spiritual guidance and inspiration from people back in El Cerrito, Calif., the small city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay where he and his wife, Shternie, run a Chabad House. (Rabbi Schneerson, who died in 1994, was the founder of the Chabad movement, a sect of Hasidic Judaism.) But this time, Rabbi Bell came with a strong ask of his own: His family needed a new place to live and serve. 'We'd been looking for six or seven months,' said Mrs. Bell, 31. 'I'd already looked at about 20 to 30 houses.' It wasn't just that their family was expanding — their second son had just been born. Their community was growing, too. 'When we had services,' Mrs. Bell said, 'we had people inside, outside, people everywhere.' They needed enough indoor space to accommodate an office for the rabbi and child care for at least 10 children — theirs and their supporters' kids — and to hold classes, meetings and other events. Outside, they needed space to build a sukkah, the temporary hut central to Sukkot, which celebrates harvests and gratitude. For Rabbi Bell, 33, it was a complicated petition. 'It took me about two hours to write,' he said. 'We really needed a blessing.' Just as he finished and was leaving the Ohel, his wife called. 'This house had just come up on Craigslist,' she said. 'And it was a dream house.' The four-bedroom, two-bath home — two stories, with 1,700 square feet on each — would provide privacy upstairs for the family and lots of open space, indoor and outdoors, for their community events. The first floor, a converted garage and basement that extended the length of the house, could serve as a meeting room, a space for workshops and a study area. 'It's always hilly in El Cerrito,' said Rabbi Bell, 'but this place was really flat.' (El Cerrito means 'the little hill in Spanish.') The house not only had an ample and level backyard with artificial turf, but the lot next door was included in the rent and had trees and other greenery that serve as a play area and meditation space. But the $5,000 monthly rent was considerably more than they'd paid at any of their previous rentals. 'We didn't have that many supporters yet,' Mrs. Bell said. 'So we had to ask: This is what we're looking for, but is it affordable?' Yanky Bell, 33, and Shternie Bell, 31 Occupations: He is a Rabbi; she is co-director, education and program coordinator The mission: 'Most other very religious groups are also very insular,' Rabbi Bell said. 'The work we do, and the work the other 5,000 Chabad families do around the world, is the opposite of insular. We want people to feel loved, to feel seen.' On future hopes: 'I'd love to see us have a place that combines nature, wellness, and Jewish learning,' Mrs. Bell said. 'To bring it all together so we have more of a connection to the earth, to nature, to animals and growing things.' Before they moved to the Bay Area in late 2016, the couple had considered less expensive regions like north Florida and the Seattle suburbs to launch their own Chabad House. 'I remember I zoomed in on Google maps and put in 'Chabad' to see where there were no Chabads,' Rabbi Bell said. 'We looked at places with large Jewish populations that were underserved.' About 350,000 Jews live in the Bay Area. When they asked a rabbi in Berkeley for guidance, he suggested El Cerrito — a city of about 25,000 just north of Berkeley, with steep inclines and panoramic views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco. Chabad runs on fund-raising from supporters, so the Bells, though young and scrappy, had a shoestring budget. Because neither is native to the Bay Area — Rabbi Bell is originally from England and Mrs. Bell is from Canada — they had to develop relationships, and raise money, from scratch. 'El Cerrito was the first place we came,' Rabbi Bell said. 'We spent two days walking around the plaza and asking people if they knew any Jews. Someone sent us to a mechanic who said he was Jewish but not religious.' Unlike many Orthodox Jewish denominations, Chabad's mission is to reach out to all Jews, so strict observance isn't an issue. 'We help Jewish people connect joyously with their heritage,' said the rabbi. After they moved into the house (the rent has since risen to $4,515 a month), the Bells' first event at Chabad of El Cerrito was for Hanukkah. They'd sent out a mailer and were stunned when more than 120 people showed up. 'There was a lot of excitement, but not all of that translates right away,' said Mrs. Bell. 'But we just kept doing it.' They ran workshops on how to make challah, worked with a local Home Depot to teach children how to make menorahs, gave a family seminar on how to make and blow the shofar (the ram's horn used during Rosh Hashana services), taught online classes, held women's events and study groups, and hosted celebrations and religious services. The yard now houses a coop for a trio chickens the Bells recently acquired. Even the nonobservant mechanic eventually came to their events and ended up becoming a friend. 'It's very typical of Chabad to run all these things out of the home,' Mrs. Bell said. 'It's Chabad House for a reason. Emotionally and psychologically, it should feel like a home, like a loving space. It should feel like what home feels like. This reflects our larger goal, to make this world a home for the divine by revealing the divinity in every person and everything.' Though there is no official or formal membership in Chabad, the Bells said they now distribute matzos for Passover to more than 450 families in the area. Services draw more than 50 people each week. 'As we get older, maturity allows us to go deeper, to be more intentional,' Mrs. Bell said. 'So many people tell us they're not religious. But it's not required. It takes a while sometimes for people to believe us.'
